History Theatre / WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf

The original Broadway production starred Arthur Hill as George, Uta Hagen as Martha, Creator/GeorgeGrizzard as Nick, and Creator/MelindaDillon as Honey. It won several important dramatic awards, including UsefulNotes/{{Tony|Award Winners}}s for Best Play, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The play was also selected for the UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize for Drama by that year’s drama jury, but the jury was overruled by the advisory board, which objected to its profanity and sexual content; correspondingly, no prize for drama was awarded that year.

The play was adapted into a [[TheFilmOfThePlay 1966 film]] directed by Creator/MikeNichols, starring Creator/RichardBurton as George, Creator/ElizabethTaylor as Martha, Creator/GeorgeSegal as Nick, and Creator/SandyDennis as Honey. The film received UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}} nominations in every category for which it was eligible--thirteen in all--and won five, including Best Actress for Taylor (in what is generally considered her greatest performance) and Best Supporting Actress for Dennis.

Featuring a screenplay adaptation by Ernest Lehman, the film was also a major step in the unraveling of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, as it featured dialogue that was profane and extremely sexually explicit by [[TheSixties 1960s]] standards and was released with almost no changes (to the point where it was the first film to ever be rated R by the MPAA, [[UrExample even before its rating system was formally established]]). Later in 1966, Creator/{{MGM}} released ''Film/{{Blowup}}'' without Hays Code approval, which effectively marked the end of the Code.

--->'''George''': Martha, in my mind you're buried up to your neck to cement. No...up to your nose, it's quieter.
--->'''George''': [Our son] is the apple of our three eyes, Martha being a cyclops.

* {{Absurdism}}: A notable American entry in the Theatre of the Absurd. At first the characters come of as odd, but grounded enough. But as things unfold, they act more and more mad, and the story and their history just gets stranger.

* WordSaladTitle: The play (and the film) is not a biography on Virginia Woolf. Virginia Woolf doesn't appear in the play, except by name, nor is there a character coincidentally named Virginia Woolf. For that matter, the play is not about a support group for people with an irrational fear of the early 20th century feminist and modernist writer. See PunBasedTitle for the actual reason below.

The original Broadway production starred Arthur Hill as George, Uta Hagen as Martha, Creator/GeorgeGrizzard as Nick, and Creator/MelindaDillon as Honey. It won several important dramatic awards, including UsefulNotes/{{Tony|Award Winners}}s for Best Play, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The play was also selected for the UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize for Drama by that year’s drama jury, but the jury was overruled by the advisory board, who objected to its profanity and sexual content; correspondingly, no prize for drama was awarded that year.

The original Broadway production starred Arthur Hill as George, Uta Hagen as Martha, Creator/GeorgeGrizzard as Nick, and Creator/MelindaDillon as Honey. It won several important dramatic awards, including the UsefulNotes/{{Tony|Award Winners}}s for Best Play, Best Actor, and Best Actress. It was also selected for the UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize for Drama by that year’s drama jury, but the jury was overruled by the advisory board, who objected to its profanity and sexual content; correspondingly, no prize for drama was awarded that year.

A classic 1962 play by Edward Albee, this character study follows George, a "boring" middle-aged history professor at a small [[HollywoodNewEngland New England]] college, and his caustic, abusive wife Martha. Martha invites another, younger professor, Nick, and his meek and mousy wife, Honey, into their home one very drunken very early morning. The older couple verbally spars in front of their guests, and then gradually turns their abuse--and lust--onto them.

* MrsRobinson: After a few verbal and physical spats with her husband George, a drunken Martha blatantly flirts with the married college student Nick, asking him about his physic, dances rather suggestively with him in front of George and Honey, and then later attempts to sleep with him. Unfortunately for her, it fails because he is too intoxicated to perform sexually and she mocks him for it.

* NonIndicativeName: The play (and the film) is not a biography on Virginia Woolf. Virginia Woolf doesn't appear in the play, except by name, nor is there a character coincidentally named Virginia Woolf. For that matter, the play is not about a support group for people with an irrational fear of the early 20th century feminist and modernist writer. See PunBasedTitle for the actual reason below.

* MeaningfulName: George and Martha are named after [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington the first US president]] and his wife -- and the circumstances of ''that'' marriage are similar.

* LuckyTranslation: The German version still has the boy in George's story asking for "whiskey"... only in German, it sounds exactly the same as the word for "wanky". It makes the story George tells just a little bit funnier.

--->'''George''': Well yes, [our son] is a comfort. He's a beanbag.\\

A classic 1962 play by Edward Albee, this character study follows George, a "boring" middle-aged history professor at a small [[HollywoodNewEngland New England]] college, and his caustic, abusive wife Martha. Martha invites another, younger professor, Nick, and his meek and mousy wife, Honey, into their home one very drunken very early morning. The older couple verbally spars in front of their guests, and then gradually turns their abuse -- and lust -- onto them.

-->--'''Martha'''

* WorfHadTheFlu: The very beginning of the show tricks the audience into thinking George is some kind of HenpeckedHusband. Later on, after he's made it clear just how utterly ferocious he can be, he tells Martha that he's managed to drown her out and accept her behavior, but her actions through the night awakened his brought out the fight in him, thus explaining the contrast between his attitude at the very beginning with the rest of the play.

* NeverLiveItDown: InUniverse, Martha will never let George forget he ordered "bergin and water" (he meant bourbon). It leads a [[TranquilFury pissed]] George to perform a CatScare with a shotgun-umbrella.

* {{Absurdism}}: A notable American entry in the Theatre of the Absurd.

* AwfulWeddedLife: A ''particularly'' dark example.

* AmbiguouslyGay: George. [[spoiler: It would explain why he wasn't able to have a child with Martha: he married her to get ahead in the university, but was unable to bring himself to have sex with her - even though they were good friends. It also would explain why he never got promoted, as Martha's father possibly became disillusioned with George's ability to give him a grandson and he knew George was gay. It also explains the HoYay between Nick and himself, if one-sided. Albee himself was gay.]]

* DomesticAbuse: Take a guess.

The play was adapted into a [[TheFilmOfThePlay 1966 film]] directed by Creator/MikeNichols, starring Creator/RichardBurton as George, Creator/ElizabethTaylor as Martha, Creator/GeorgeSegal as Nick, and Sandy Dennis as Honey. The film received UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}} nominations in every category for which it was eligible--thirteen in all--and won five, including Best Actress for Taylor (in what is generally considered her greatest performance) and Best Supporting Actress for Dennis.